SITE VISIT: HAYMARKET SQ

PUBLIC MARKET PLACE:
SITE VISIT: HAYMARKET SQ
9/20/08 6PM-7PM


Smells:

Aged/rotted fruit
Fish
Exhaust
Trash trucks
Barfood smell increasing overtime as people populate the area more

Sounds:

Haggling over prices
Vendors yelling prices, advertising freshness and quality
Vehicles (increasing over time as more people start to go out to dinner/bars)
Me being yelled at by a muslim man for taking his picture (not allowed in Quran)
Many different accents/languages
Laughter
Parents yelling at kids
Children crying
Music from bars getting louder, same with music emitted from cars: news, latin music, rock, hip hop, sports
Cameras flashing/going off
Cell phones and people talking on them
me talking to old people about picture taking, one of the old women hit on me, gave a nervous laugh, took pic and bolted like nobodies business

Sights:

· Migrations:
1. Market place to T
2. T to home
3. T to clubs/bars/entertainment
4. North End to Faneuil to Quincy Market to Beacon Hill and vice versa
· Transition form night to day
· Rust on sculpture shows change over time weathering same with patinas on cornices of buildings
· Leaves changing color because of season and climate
· Population increasing
· More groups than individual people
· Clothing on people become more formal/night wear than earlier
· People transitioning from shopping to eating/drinking going out:entertainment
· Vendors are doing the inverse of shoppers, selling not buying all within the same space
· Lots of tourists
· Lots of back and forth between neighborhoods
· Greenway occupied by people, walking, talking, sitting, picture taking, enjoying the view of the skyline, relaxing on the grass, reflecting, dog walking
· Lights of/on surrounding buildings create accents ie neon signs, accent lighting on building cornices/edges create depth
· Darkness (not lit by accent lighting or street lights) softens hard edges of buildings, not as pronounced
· Street lights punctuating the sidewalk at intervals, stages creating specific moments in time, dark area is transition between two points
· Boundaries: overhead garage at edge of Haymarket and Bulfinch triangle separates two neighborhoods visually and physically, State Street is buffered from North End and Bulfinch triangle by Quincy Market (financial separated from sports by entertainment/shopping)
· T is are located at intersections/transitions of the nodes (neighborhood) serve as points of reference/landmarks

Feeling:

· Breeze/cool air more pronounced as night rolls in
· T underground vibrating
· Days getting shorter, can tell that autum is here, meaning school starts, the World Series and the NFL
· I feel alone even though I’m surrounded by many people, blend into the crowd
· Reminds me of Kari Bazar/Αγια Μαρινα (Agia Marina) in Tsotyli (town next to my village in Greece that has an open air market a few times a year on certain holidays), nostalgic, comforting
· Similar to Agora in Athens and Kozani, Roman forum, Bezasten/bazaar, people hawking wears, stores in the commercial Circus Maximus known as Quincy Market, along with street entertainment and people preaching
· Not overpowered by the scale of the architecture even in the financial district or government center.